Aeschylus: Eumenides - Couverture souple

Aeschylus/Sommerstein

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0521284309 ISBN 13 : 9780521284301

Editeur : Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Used book

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur

Aeschylus (c. 525/524 BC – c. 456/455 BC) was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict amongst them, whereas previously characters had interacted only with the chorus. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times. The Persian Wars would play a large role in the playwright's life and career. In 490 BC, Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against Darius I's invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon. In 480, Aeschylus was called into military service again, this time against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. In 458 BC, he returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle which had mistook his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Professor Sommerstein here presents a freshly constituted text, with introduction and commentary, of Eumenides, the climactic play of the only surviving complete Greek tragic trilogy, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. Eumenides is of all Athenian tragic dramas the one most consciously designed to be relevant to the situation of the Athenian state at the time of its performance (458 BC), and seems to have contained daring innovations both in technique and in ideas. The introduction and commentary to this edition seek to bring out how Aeschylus shaped to his purpose the legends he inherited, and ended the tragic story of Agamemnon's family in a celebration of Athenian civic unity and justice. The commentary also pays detailed attention to the linguistic, metrical and textual problems to be encountered by the reader.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Cambridge University Press
• Date d'édition: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0521284309
• ISBN 13: 9780521284301
• Reliure: Broché
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 324